


Cutscene

by hurricanesunny



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: BMC Digizine 2017, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-12 02:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15329904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricanesunny/pseuds/hurricanesunny
Summary: Jeremy and Michael reflect on the past two years.





	Cutscene

**Author's Note:**

> this is the fic that i wrote for the bmc fanzine that was hosted on tumblr last year! sales ended the other day so i can finally share my contribution to it. the prompt was pretty simple: post-musical, max of 2,000 words, and try to keep it canon.

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

Jeremy adjusted the backpack strap on his shoulder as he pushed the door open, carefully sidestepping inside. Closing the door behind him, something odd hit Jeremy’s stomach as he took in the sight of his best friend’s bedroom. Or, really, what was left of it.

Michael’s room had always been pretty clean. That wasn’t a shock. The basement was their designated playroom, even after the alphabet rug and plastic kitchenette made their inevitable journey to the yard sale. Up here, Michael basically did his AP homework or slept. There were still a few posters on the wall. A stuffed lion perched on the bookshelf. An array of framed photos. But all the little things that made the room, well, _Michael’s_ , were gone. 

Jeremy gave a low whistle. “Damn.”

“Damn who?” Jeremy rolled his eyes. That didn’t even deserve a response. “Yo. Come help me sort through this junk.” Michael was cross-legged on the carpet, the box fan to his back. He was surrounded by bags and bins, neatly labelled in Tita’s small handwriting. Michael’s clothes. Michael’s school stuff. Michael’s games. 

“What is all this stuff anyway?” Jeremy stepped over Michael’s discarded hoodie and plopped onto the floor next to him, already feeling his shirt sticking to his back. Ugh. August sucked.

“What remains of my fleeting adolescence, Jer.” Michael pulled a small plastic bin labelled ‘mementos’ towards him. “Be careful; you might get a vague sense of mortality on your shirt.”

“What?”

“Just sort,” Michael said, dropping a handful of photographs into Jeremy’s lap.

“Oh. Uh, okay.” Jeremy slipped off his backpack and gathered up the developed photos, making a neat little pile in front of him. Michael was kind of a cryptid in the group chat, usually only responding to plans or to take Christine’s side on any matter, but you could always count on him to relentlessly spam ‘pics pls’ if he saw something he liked. Michael was kind of weird and sentimental like that. As Michael went back to sorting ticket stubs, Jeremy started his task. The first picture was the squad in a booth, smushed together in order to fit in the limited camera range Jake’s outstretched arm allowed. 

“Yikes,” Jeremy breathed. Stage makeup was no fan of flash. 

“Shit, dude, that was opening night this spring, right?” Michael asked, leaning over Jeremy’s shoulder. He frowned. “Was Rich seriously wearing a flying monkey costume to go eat?”

“That wasn’t even his part.” Jeremy moved it to the back of the stack. “Oh, hey. This was graduation. You look… very pale.” Michael abandoned his bin of mementos to snatch the picture from Jeremy’s hands. He was bad at very few things, but multi-tasking was definitely one of them. Michael groaned, peering into his own terrified reflection. 

“Y’know, I even offered to write a speech to get _out_ of my valedictorian speech.” Jeremy grinned as he flipped through the next ones. There was one of Chloe silently fixing his tie before being ushered to her spot at the back of the line. Michael with Jake and the other two class speakers. Jenna and Christine with a tearful Mr. Reyes. The next one made Jeremy snort.

“Hey, did we ever figure out if Rich _actually_ went commando on graduation?” He pointed to Rich, one finger pressed to his lips as he slowly unzipped his robe next to a very frazzled Jeremy.

“Uh,” Michael examined a wrinkled invitation from Chloe’s 18th birthday party, “I think that was a mystery we decided was best left unsolved.” Jeremy smiled at the next picture. 

“Hey, can I--” he held up the picture of him and his dad posing with his diploma. Michael looked up.

“‘Course, man. Here, uh...” Michael leaned over and shuffled the photos on the ground a bit. Jeremy ignored the twinge of annoyance at his destroyed stack for the fact that Michael was Michael and he loved him. “Ah! Buy one, get one.” Jeremy looked at the picture of his dad side-hugging Michael and rolled his eyes. Michael scoffed, clutching his chest dramatically. “Jeremiah Heere, need I remind you that there are _two_ pictures in your father’s wallet?”

“Gee, Mike, how come your mom lets you have two dads?” Jeremy shot back, fighting back a grin. Nonetheless, he unzipped his backpack and carefully placed the pictures inside. His dad would really like them. Especially after dropping them off at campus tomorrow afternoon. 

The next photo was him, Chloe, and Brooke, all wearing ridiculous shades from one of the tween stores in the mall. Jeremy and Brooke used to go alone, his way of slowly, hopefully, making reparations, but after things started to heal between him and Chloe, she had asked to tag along. And he liked shopping with them, even if the other kids at school called him, ugh, _whipped._

“Jer. Lookit.” Jeremy looked up from a timestamped 2 A.M. picture of Rich standing in a store aisle holding a shower curtain and a whole watermelon. The paper fortune teller in Michael’s hand gently nipped Jeremy’s shoulder. “Got 25 cents? I’ll tell your future.” Jeremy waved him off, snorting.

“I _wrote_ those, dude. I’m no chump.”

“Did they come true?”

“Huh?”

“Your fortunes.” Michael unfolded each section to read. “‘You will do more than just survive one day.’” His grin slowly slipped into something softer. “‘You will forgive yourself. You will feel like your own person again.’” Jeremy busied himself with more pictures. Jake. Jenna. Jake. Brooke. Christine. “You will make things right.” Michael’s lips twitched upward, at least Jeremy thought they might have, then placed it in the ‘keep’ pile. 

Sensing the moment had gone too serious, Michael blindly grabbed something new. “Old receipt from when Rich ordered one of everything on the dollar menu and made us livestream him eating it?” Michael snorted. “Keep it.” He set it aside, then pulled out a singed card. “From the birthday no one else remembered…” he murmured, thumbing the marked surface. Moment was back.

“You--” Jeremy started, but Michael had already made up his mind.

“Super keep it.”

Feeling reassured and just a little awkward, Jeremy turned back to his task. There was Rich, Michael, and Jenna during one of their Paranormal Club meetings. A couple night vision selfies from Michael’s dual screen. Jake’s Halloween party last year, a calmer event for just the eight of them. At least half of the photos from the party were definitely taken by Chloe before driving everyone home. There were a few from regular food outings. Hangin’ at the mall. A few lunchroom photos. Chloe’s end of school pool party. Brooke and Jeremy had played Chicken against Rich and Christine for, like, two hours. Jake from the sidelines had expertly captured Jeremy’s wobbly body nearly topple over his partner while Rich and Christine dominated the shallow end.

It definitely hadn’t been a fair fight.

“Check it. Brosage.” Michael held up his flowered wrist, deadpan. Jeremy’s voice cracked in laughter, nearly dropping a picture of Chloe doing Jenna’s hair.

“Isn’t that what--”

“Yes, that is exactly what Rich called it.”

Jeremy caught his breath, then quickly shuffled through the pictures. Just as he thought, there were a few prom photos in here.

“Just Junior prom?”

“Senior’s in the box I already sorted.” Michael gestured vaguely to one of the bins behind them as he threw away last year’s report cards. “All those pics slipped through the cracks.” Jeremy took a moment reflecting on the blurry photos. Jake, his chair covered in streamers and glitter after being crowned Prom King (duh.) Brooke and Michael sharing a joint behind the school dumpsters. Him and Christine during a slow song, Jeremy’s eyes closed and Christine’s head on his chest, a soft smile on her lips as she made eye contact with the photographer. And then there was Rich and Michael, doing the classic prom photo pose. Michael had agreed to be Rich’s ‘date’ for moral support on him coming out, and boy did Rich make sure to make him regret it every step of the night. 

Best not to bring it up, actually.

There were only a few photos left. There was one Jenna had taken of Michael during one of their documentary binges, his glasses skewed and drool pooling on his pillow. Before Jeremy could even think to take it with, Michael snatched it out of Jeremy’s hand with an undignified huff and set it in his ‘keep’ pile. Shaking his head with amusement, Jeremy looked through photos of Michael and Christine taking pottery class and that one hip-hop class at the community center. There was Rich and Jake on the day Jake moved into his apartment. To celebrate, Jeremy had tagged along with them for a round of pool at the rec center, which explained this next picture of Rich holding the pool cue to his groin. Jake, loyal as ever, was leaning over in his chair to administer the much-needed 5 and 6 ball beneath. 

Jeremy, of course, had been forced to take the picture.

“Hey.” Michael held up one of those dinky amusement park keychains. He dropped it in Jeremy’s open palm, watching him with a knowing grin. Jeremy studied the little picture in his hand. Him and Christine were in the front cart of a rollercoaster, Jeremy sitting straight up while Christine’s eyes were scrunched tight in laughter. Jeremy, despite the damage he did to the nearest garbage can approximately fifteen minutes after this picture was taken, smiled at the memory. He had spent the entire car ride home with his head in Christine’s lap, her cool fingers gently working through his hair.

It almost, sorta, kinda made up for the puke.

Michael nudged him, done with the bin and now fiddling with his polaroid camera from the shelf. “How’s you and Chris, anyway? You talk yet about...” he trailed off.

Jeremy thought for a moment. “We’re going to take it as it comes. See what happens.” He pushed the newly sorted photos aside, stretching out his legs. “She’s so excited for New York, dude. You can barely get a word in nowadays.”

“Oh, I know,” Michael said. “Bestie privileges and all.” 

“You say that just to bother me.”

“No, Jeremy. I say it because it’s true.” 

“Well, if you don’t need your Player, what? _Three_ anymore, I finished the pictures.”

“Wait-wait-wait, hol’ up a sec.” Michael suddenly smashed his side into Jeremy’s, pressing the button and shooting a flash directly into Jeremy’s retinas before he could even blink. Chuckling to himself, Michael swiped the new polaroid from the camera before setting it back on the shelf. Humming a few beats of that one song, Michael shook the photo a bit before setting it on the top of the pile.

“You of all people know you’re not supposed to do that,” Jeremy said, rubbing his eyes.

“I can’t resist the shake, Jer.” Michael gestured to the refurbished camera. “I actually haven’t seen this baby in a while.” He looked at Jeremy. “Think I should take it with? Millennials love hipsters.”

“Well, guys like us are cool in college,” Jeremy mused.

“Y’know, you were totally being a brat just then but,” Michael glanced down at the little stacks of photos, “I’m kinda glad it’s no longer a two player game.” Jeremy smiled.

“Me too.” 

Bursting with excitement, Michael slapped Jeremy’s back, hand sliding over for a quick shoulder squeeze. “The 64’s still plugged in downstairs. Couldn’t bear to part with it until we absolutely have to tomorrow. Up for a round?” Jeremy grinned. 

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

Letting out a whoop and a holler, Michael snatched his hoodie off the ground and leapt to his feet. Jeremy could hear Michael already yelling from the basement as he made his way to the bedroom door. Taking one last look behind him, Jeremy took a deep breath. Tomorrow was it. 

A new level just around the corner.

And as Jeremy closed the door behind him, he could already feel himself racing towards it.

**Author's Note:**

> the fortune-teller is actually first shown in [bird's piece!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15667896) continuity is cool. 
> 
> ☀️ please kudos and/or comment to let me know what you think! ☀️


End file.
